The four speed tiers
SMTEC Speedplace offers four lead-time tiers that differ in price and guarantee. All values count from complete data set and order release:
- Turbo — from 6 working days. Highest surcharge, top priority in line scheduling.
- Express — from 8 working days. Recommended for time-critical iterations.
- Standard — from 10 working days. Best price-time balance, default conditions.
- Economy — from 15 working days. Lowest price, runs in scheduling gaps.
"Working days" means Mon–Fri excluding Swiss public holidays and bridge days. Six working days typically correspond to about eight calendar days.
What drives lead time
The lead time shown in the configurator is not a marketing number — it is the sum of concrete process steps:
1. Material availability
The biggest lever. If all components are in stock at our connected distributors (Mouser, Digikey, Farnell), procurement starts immediately. Long supplier lead times on individual components extend the tier accordingly — the portal shows this transparently. Turbo is only bookable when material is available within 1 working day.
2. Assembly complexity
Number of components, double-sided builds, fine-pitch, BGAs and special processes (cleaning, conformal coating) increase production effort. A 40-component single-sided board flows differently than a 600-component double-sided board with BGA and coating.
3. Line utilisation
SMTEC manufactures on the regular series SMT lines. Turbo gets priority, Economy runs in gaps. This is transparently calculated: higher tiers cost more because they push other orders back.
4. Special processes
Optional services extend lead time:
- THT assembly: +2 working days
- 3D-AOI inspection: +2 working days
- Cleaning: +1 working day
- Conformal coating: +2 working days
- DFM report: +0 working days (runs in parallel)
These days add automatically in the online configurator.
What the material clause means
Every Speedplace lead time is subject to material availability. Concretely: if a critical component becomes unavailable after order placement — for example because distributor stock was sold in the meantime — we inform before production starts and propose the following options:
- Alternative sourcing from another distributor, with the lead time adjusted accordingly. Usually the first path.
- Customer-provided part (consignment) if you can source the component faster yourself.
- Leave the position unpopulated (DNP) if that is acceptable for your prototype.
- Cancel at no cost if the component is not available at all and no alternative is acceptable.
Speedplace does not guarantee lead times we cannot keep. We would rather say "this will be Express instead of Turbo, here is the adjusted price" before order confirmation — than break a promise later.
On-time delivery in numbers
Over the past 12 months (status May 2026), SMTEC's on-time delivery has been above 98%. The most frequent reasons for delays, in order:
- Engineering question (EQ) from the PCB supplier
- Customer layout changes after order release
- Components sold in the meantime between the customer's order and SMTEC's order (under 24 h)
- Incorrectly specified parts in the customer BOM (wrong MPN, missing tolerances)
Which tier fits your project?
The online configurator shows all four speed tiers with price and binding lead time. Material availability is checked automatically.
To the configurator →